A. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to interfaces for computer systems and, more particularly, to an interface for viewing in separate frames information from at least two remote sources and communicating information between the frames to enhance the user's access to information from the sources.
B. Description of the Related Art
The Internet, fueled by the phenomenal popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW), has exhibited exponential growth over the past few years. In the case of the WWW, the ease of self-publication has helped generate an estimated 50-120 million documents on a broad range of subjects.
To access all this information, users need only standard computer equipment, such as a personal computer with a display and modem, and an Internet connection. Several types of Internet connections are available, including connections through Internet Service Providers (ISPs). To use an Internet connection from an ISP, for example, the user dials into a computer at the ISP's facility using the modem and a standard telephone line. The ISP's computer in turn provides the user with access to the Internet.
Through this Internet connection, the user accesses information on the web using a computer program called a "web browser," such as the Netscape Navigator.TM. from Netscape Communications Corporation. To accomplish this, the user gives the web browser a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for an object on the Internet, for example, a document containing information of interest. The document is referred to as a "web page," and the information contained in the web page is called "content." Web pages often refer to other web pages using "hypertext link" or "hyperlinks" that include words or phrases representing the other pages in a form that gives the browser a URL for the corresponding web page when a user selects a hyperlink. Hyperlinks are made possible by building web pages using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
The URL identifies a specific computer on the Internet, called a "Web Server," and, more particularly, the location of a web page located on the web Server. The web browser retrieves the web page and displays it for the user.
The Internet thus provides users access to a wide variety of information. For example, users can use the Internet to locate information on current and upcoming events in cities and communities throughout the world.
In contrast, companies offering access to specific types of information have used and continue to use stand-alone, client-server, or client-to-host applications that deliver specific or proprietary functionality and related information to a client workstation. For example, in the travel industry the SABRE.RTM. System provides users such as travel agents with access to numerous databases of travel information for the purpose of making customer reservations with airlines, hotels, car rental agencies, etc. SABRE.RTM. is a registered trademark of TSGL Holdings, Inc.
The travel industry is dominated by such legacy systems because long ago certain travel industry groups, notably the United States-based airline industry, settled on several computer-based reservation systems (CRSs) for managing flight reservation information based on each traveler's desired origination-to-destination journey. CRSs generally arrange, organize, and store this data in a format generally corresponding to the dominant travel routing patterns, in which a carrier accepts a passenger at a first, origination location and discharges the passenger at a terminal or destination location. The data is generally stored in several databases within each reservation system: schedules, tariffs, and travel rules.
Booking a flight through a CRS involves creating a computer record called the Passenger Name Record (PNR) of data from each of these databases. As flights are booked for different carriers, the system sends a message with the flight information to the airline's computers. The PNR is used to generate tickets and itineraries.
Current legacy applications, such as CRSs, and newer HTML-based Internet applications deliver discrete and separate information streams to a client workstation. While a user may be able to use both applications at the same time, the user is not able to share events or information across these applications because the applications function totally independently of each other. For example, a travel agent can display rich destination content for New York City from a web site with the help of a web browser. Then, by switching to a different window on the same workstation, the agent can use a CRS such as the SABRE System to display a list of airline flights to New York. However, the two information displays are in no way linked, either physically or logically. This requires the travel agent to be familiar with two different systems, different data sources, different windows, and different transactions.
There is therefore a need for a system that bridges the gap between these two environments by interfacing at least two applications, such as a legacy application and HTML-based Internet application, and for displaying information from each application in a frame of a multi-frame browser on a client workstation.